


Rehab

by tridecaphilia



Series: Cranks Anonymous [1]
Category: The Maze Runner (2014), The Maze Runner Series - All Media Types, The Maze Runner Series - James Dashner
Genre: Artistic Liberties, Caretaking, Crank Newt, Drinking, Eating Disorders, First Kiss, M/M, Medical Procedures, Medication, Mild Gore, Multi, Newt Lives, Original Character(s), Post-The Death Cure, Recovery, Self-Harm, Slow Build, Starvation, Suicide Attempt, Teresa is in a coma but she's alive, Vomiting, only mentioned but it's there, page 250 does not exist, page 317 does not exist either, the only violence is in the first chapter but it's there too
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-17
Updated: 2015-04-17
Packaged: 2018-03-18 06:10:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 17,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3559007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tridecaphilia/pseuds/tridecaphilia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I thought I lost both of you," he said, voice cracking. "I didn't know how I was going to survive it, after Chuck... And when Minho told me you'd survived, it felt like a miracle. But this..." He took a breath to steady himself. "This feels like a cosmic joke. There's nothing of him left, not anymore."</p><p>Thomas couldn't live without Newt. Minho and Brenda helped him bring Newt to Paradise, but what's left isn't Newt anymore. With the help of a few good WICKED scientists, they decide to cure him. Too bad Newt doesn't want to be cured.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. This doesn't have to be the end.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to Kanky for the beta and to my cheerleaders for their encouragement. All remaining mistakes are mine.
> 
> Update 3/21/2015: Emphasis has been added in a few places. I didn't realize my formatting got lost when I copied and pasted.

"Oh, shuck me."

Thomas had to agree with the sentiment. They'd taken a risk in doing this, and it looked like the risk had been a waste.

"Gods," Minho whispered. "Look at him. There's nothing left."

It was killing Thomas just to look at the... thing in the makeshift cell. "I have to go," he said abruptly. Without waiting for an answer, he left. He needed space. He needed to think.

He hadn't gotten any more creative about his hiding places since the Glade, so really it was no wonder that  someone found him eventually. The only wonder was that it was Brenda instead of Minho. But then, Thomas had known for a while that she'd known the old him, so maybe he was just even less creative than he'd thought.

Silence hung between them for a while before Brenda said, "I'm sorry."

"Why are you apologizing?" Thomas asked bitterly. "You warned me. Not your fault I didn't listen." In fairness, Minho hadn't listened either, but Thomas was too deep in self loathing to be fair. "Not your fault I forgot the letter," he muttered.

He was pretty sure Brenda heard him, regardless of how quiet he'd been, but to her credit she didn't say anything. "We have facilities," she said a little reluctantly. "WICKED's best surgeons are here, the immune ones anyway. And we have access to all the data from the Trials."

He turned his head to look at her. "Where are you going with this?" He had a feeling he knew, but it was terrifying even to think of it.

"I'm saying," Brenda said slowly, "that we'll try. No promises. But the whole point of this place was to finish what WICKED started and save the world. And I didn't break all the rules and open the Flat Trans again just so we could give up and kill him."

Somehow that actually made Thomas feel better.

~

Jeff looked up at Thomas and offered him a sad smile and a soft shake of his head. Thomas nodded, understanding. He hadn’t really expected there to be a change. “I just want to talk to her,” he murmured.

He knew it was stupid. He knew she couldn’t hear. But things had been strained between him and Minho since reaching paradise--Thomas hadn’t told him about the note and he knew Minho could tell he was keeping secrets--and he’d been short on friends. Short enough that he’d found himself telling his troubles more and more to the one person in the world least capable of offering advice. And after his talk with Brenda yesterday, after a sleepless night where he’d fallen out of his hammock three times from tossing around, after dodging Minho once more… after all that, he needed someone to talk to.

Jeff grimaced but nodded and stepped aside. Thomas stepped up and took the seat by the bed. Tentatively, he took the hand that wasn’t bandaged and splinted.

He opened his mouth to say something, then closed it again. He wasn’t sure what to say.

Finally he started talking. “He’s alive,” he said. “We found him, we brought him back, he’s alive.” Some of the tension in his shoulders unknotted as he spoke, like saying it aloud made it real. At the same time...

"I thought I lost both of you," he said, voice cracking. "I didn't know how I was going to survive it, after Chuck... And when Minho told me you'd survived, it felt like a miracle. But this..." He took a breath to steady himself. "This feels like a cosmic joke. There's nothing of him left, not anymore."

He let go of her hand so he could press both of his to his eyes, fighting back tears. Why had he agreed to this? Why had he let this happen? Why had Minho so stubbornly insisted on it?

"God, I wish we still had the swipe," he said past his hands to the girl in the bed. "At least then you could answer me." He thought, anyway. True, Teresa had spoken to him from her last coma, but that had been technologically induced and meant to let her speak. This was brought on by physical trauma.

A knock on the doorframe startled him and he turned around to see Minho standing there. The Asian wasn't looking at Teresa. "We're needed," he said shortly. "Come on."

~

Brenda hadn’t been lying when she said they had facilities. One of the hills around their little settlement had been hollowed out to make room for a lab that rivaled anything at WICKED’s original headquarters.

“This was our backup plan from day one,” Brenda explained. “Before we even started the Maze Trials we were starting to set up. Discreet teams came out here bringing supplies, setting up the power grid, building this place and a few other necessities like a jail and a hospital.”

There were dozens of questions Thomas wanted to ask. He’d known there was more to paradise than what they’d first seen, but where the shuck had _this_ come from? How much of WICKED had come along? How equipped were they? Why had they retreated to paradise at all if they were so well-equipped to find a cure? The questions tangled around each other and around his heart, pounding in his throat, and he couldn’t seem to get any words out at all. Minho, however, had no such problem.

“‘Backup plan’ my butt,” he said. “You made a hundred geniuses build a society and then _conveniently_ we get transported to a place with no society and have to do it all shucking over again. This was the plan all along, wasn’t it?”

Brenda shrugged apologetically. “It was _a_ plan all along,” she admitted. “Here we are.”

The door they’d stopped at opened onto an observation room. A man and a woman in white lab coats and another two men dressed in fatigues and armed with Launchers stood in the room, all four looking through the observation window. The scientists looked over their shoulders at the new arrivals; the guards (Thomas suspected they were former Crank Palace guards) did not. There was tension in their shoulders and their eyes were fixed on the figure on the other side of the glass. It was an effort--he wasn’t sure he wanted to see--but Thomas turned his eyes to him as well.

Beyond the glass was another observation room, or at least a safe space to stand before reaching the far room. The glass in the room they were in had to be a mirror on the other side, Thomas figured; the glass ahead was totally see-through. And up ahead was…

“Gods,” he muttered. “Why hasn’t anyone cleaned him up?” Why wasn’t there even a bed? There was a sink and toilet, and at least there was toilet paper and a soap dispenser, but there was no shower and no privacy and no bed to speak of. It made his stomach churn to look at it.

“Because it took a Launcher shot just to get him to stay down long enough to move him here,” the female scientist said tartly. “Giving him a bath is a little out of the question at this point.”

Minho shifted, and without even looking Thomas knew he was tensing for battle. He felt the same.

The male scientist seemed to sense the danger, because he hurried to smooth over his colleague’s misstep. “But,” he assured them, “we’re hoping that will change in the near future. That’s why we asked you here today.”

Thomas looked at Minho, but Minho looked just as baffled as he felt. He looked at the scientists. “I thought we were here so you could observe him with people he knows.”

“Exactly.” Brenda took a moment and backed up. “Thomas, Minho, this is Sandra Kramer and Dmitri Dietrich. Sandra is--was--the best behavior scientist WICKED had who could come here with us.” In other words, Thomas surmised, the best who was immune. “She also holds degrees in psychology and psychiatry, making her the only one here qualified to dispense those medications. Dmitri is our resident neurosurgeon. He helped install the original Swipe technology, and before the Flare hit he was doing some very interesting work with nanites. Gregory and Marcus over here are former guards at Denver’s Crank Palace, here to step in if something goes wrong.”

“And what exactly might go wrong? What are we doing here?” Thomas knew his voice was too sharp but he couldn’t bring himself to care.

Dr. Kramer was the one to speak up this time. “Right now we’re just establishing a baseline. We’ve had strangers in already, and Brenda and Jorge were in earlier. We need to know how he reacts to friends. From what we understand, you’re the closest friends he has.”

Thomas nodded. They were at that. “And--that baseline will help you cure him?”

A shrug and an apologetic grimace were the first answer, and sent his stomach plummeting before Dr. Kramer hurried to add, “It’ll give us something to compare the cure against. Any attempts at curing him would be meaningless without a baseline.”

“Kramer and Dietrich have already worked out a few treatments they’re going to try,” Brenda explained softly. “They just need this data before they can start.”

Thomas nodded and looked at Minho, who glanced at him and then turned to the scientists. “So let us in already.”

Dr. Dietrich keyed in a code and one glass panel slid aside with a pneumatic hiss.

In the room, Newt’s head whipped around and his eyes locked on Thomas and Minho as they entered.

Thomas swallowed, mouth suddenly dry, but went into the second observation room, Minho right beside him. “Hey,” he said lamely.

Newt’s lip curled back and he hissed, evidently not impressed. Thomas stopped in place, watching his friend just as intently as Newt watched him.

It was… discouraging, to say the least. Newt was covered in bruises and blood, not all of which could be his. Dirt was crusted on his hands and neck. His shirt was ripped, exposing a patch of skin that was rippled--Thomas presumed that was another remnant of his fall. But his physical state was easier to look at than his face. His expression was… alien. It wasn’t Newt. It wasn’t even human.

The silence stretched out between them, none of the three willing to say anything. Thomas half-expected Brenda to pull the plug and tell them this wasn’t getting them anywhere. Until…

“So, Tommy. Come to apologize?”

Thomas’s eyes jerked unwillingly up to Newt’s face. There it was. The animal tilt of his head, the sneer that looked so out of place, the cruel gleam in his eyes. He was crouched in a position that looked somehow inhuman, giving the illusion his bones were bending the wrong way; but the voice that had come from that mouth was all Newt.

Thomas realized suddenly that his mouth was dry. He had to swallow several times before asking, “For what?”

Newt shook his head, expression dropping with eerie speed into something almost pitying. It was like he was playacting at being human, and watching made Thomas want to throw up. It only got worse when Newt pulled himself to his feet, seeming somehow to take longer than he should to do it. His elbows and knees clicked as he stood, and he stretched his neck to crack that as well. He approached the glass, moving his hands like he expected them to touch the ground as well, a predator stalking his prey.

“For leaving me,” he said, too patiently, as he reached the glass. “For not doing what I asked.”

The words hit Thomas like a punch in the stomach. He’d thought about it. He had. He’d considered it--but he’d lost his chance back in the Crank Palace, he hadn’t seen Newt after, and as Brenda had pointed out, getting him here had cost them too much risk to waste it by killing him.

“No,” he said at last. “I’m not here to apologize.”

“Then why are you here?” Newt smiled, showing far too many teeth with the gesture, and propped his arms on the bar along the center of the observation glass. He tilted his head to the side slowly, and Thomas shivered. Everything he was doing was too slow and too patient. It was eerie, especially given how agitated he’d been when they first grabbed him.

Minho broke in. “We’re here to help you get better, shuck-face.”

Newt’s head whipped around in one of those too-fast movements again, eyes zeroing in on Minho this time. His smile spread a little wider. “And why would I want to do that?” he asked. He stepped back from the glass, spreading his arms out dramatically. “I _like_ being this way.”

Minho clenched his jaw so hard Thomas could hear teeth creak. “You don’t like being this way,” he spat. “You were so desperate _not_ to be this way you asked Thomas to shucking _kill_ you before you got this bad. I saw the note, shuck-face.”

Thomas turned to look at him, startled. Behind the glass, Newt looked from one to the other and then scowled. “Tommy, Tommy, _Tommy_ ,” he said, still far too patiently. “You really need to get better at keeping secrets. Tell me you didn’t leave the note on the bloody kitchen table.” Aggravation was growing in his tone, but he still seemed to have control. That was good, and baffling, and hopeful. They’d been sure he was past the Gone, but he seemed almost-- _almost_ \--normal. It was killing Thomas. He wanted to be in there with him, to run his hands over Newt’s face and reassure himself that he was _real_ , that he was _there_ , that they could _do_ this.

“No,” he said. “I didn’t.” And then he made a decision. In retrospect, it was a stupid decision, but he didn’t stop to think it through. For just a second Newt looked like himself. For just a second Thomas thought things could be normal. And that one second was all it took. The door in this room, unlike the one behind, was opened by a simple doorknob on this side. Before Minho could stop him, Thomas opened it.

All pretense of control vanished. Newt hurled himself at Thomas, hands out and grasping for him. Thomas was bowled over, his back hit the ground, and Newt’s fingers were around his throat.

Thomas tried to cry out, but it was hard to breathe. He grasped Newt’s wrists, trying to pull his hands away from his neck; but Newt was too strong, and he didn’t seem to notice when Thomas’s nails dug into the soft spaces of his wrist. The humanity had vanished from his face and he was snarling at Thomas like an animal. The edges of Thomas’s vision started to go gray--

Abruptly Newt was yanked off him. Thomas recognized the arm--the only thing he could see in his limited field of vision--as Minho’s. There was a voice yelling “Calm down!” and it took Thomas a minute to process that that too was Minho’s.

Newt wasn’t calming down. He snarled again and squirmed, getting his chin under Minho’s arm and clamping down with his jaws. Minho yelled again, this time calling names Thomas didn’t recognize. The door opened, and there were the guards. Oh. That’s who he’d been calling.

Thomas scrambled back against the wall and at a signal from one of the guards Minho flung Newt to the ground and Thomas heard the telltale whine of a Launcher right before the grenade hit Newt. Sparks flew, electricity arced over his skin, and Newt wailed, a long inhuman sound.

Someone--Brenda, Thomas saw when he looked over his shoulder--grabbed his arms and dragged him back into the observation room. The guards grabbed Newt and dragged him back into the cell. They both wore rubber gloves; apparently this eventuality had been prepared for.

Minho climbed to his feet and stormed out into the main observation room again. “What the _hell_ were you thinking?”

Thomas shook his head, numb. He didn’t know. It had been stupid. But Newt had looked so… human. Finally Thomas looked at Minho. “He’s gone, isn’t he?”

Minho looked at the bite in his arm and didn’t answer.

 


	2. Tell me when it kicks in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I meant to post this yesterday but then re-indexing happened and I didn't want the update to get lost, so have it today. I have up through chapter five written and plan to update Mon/Fri until it's done. Thanks to Kanky for being my beta; all remaining mistakes are mine.

Newt was gone.

They’d relocated to the hospital. Teresa’s comatose body was ten feet away from the bed Thomas sat on the edge of, letting Kramer examine him for signs of concussion while Jeff cleaned and stitched up Minho’s arm.

He’d been such an idiot, opening the door. Newt had been playing him the whole time. He’d never been in control because he’d never wanted control. The part of him that would want that… it was gone. Newt was gone. The thing in the cell wasn’t him. Thomas had failed.

“Well,” Kramer said. “I think the initial signs are positive.”

Thomas looked up, a little glassy-eyed and sure he hadn’t heard right; but Dietrich, standing over Kramer’s shoulder, was nodding. “Certainly exceeds our expectations,” he agreed.

Thomas looked between them, too tired and stunned to even try to work out what they were saying. It was Minho who asked, “The shuck are you shanks talking about? He just tried to chew my arm off.”

Brenda was the one to answer, which was probably good since Minho looked ready to chew off Kramer’s arm if she tried. “He’s cognizant,” she explained wearily. “Coherent, even. He can even respond appropriately when he wants to. That’s more than we expect from a Crank that far gone.”

Under normal circumstances, Thomas would have objected to her calling Newt a Crank. But he was numb still, from being attacked. (His best friend had tried to _strangle_ him.) He couldn't make the words leave his throat.

"The bad news," Brenda said with a sigh, "is that he's not himself anymore."

Minho spoke up for the first time. "Yes, he is."

Thomas looked at him, shock written all over his face. Minho glanced at him, then at Brenda, then said, "No one plays people like Newt does."

"Newt doesn't _play_ people," Thomas objected.

"He played you right into opening that door," Minho shot back.

"That wasn't him," Thomas said.

“I’ve known him longer than you.”

That shut Thomas up. More, granted, the fire building in Minho’s eyes than the words themselves, but he stopped objecting.

Minho, unfortunately, didn’t take that as his cue to stop. He got to his feet, looming over Thomas despite Jeff’s weary order to sit down and get stitched up. “Newt,” he growled, “is still in there. Hell, he’s still at the wheel. And _you_ \--” he turned to the scientists and jabbed a finger at them “--are gonna get the _rest_ of him back behind the wheel. The _right_ him. Good that?”

“We can’t make--” Dietrich began.

Kramer unsubtly stepped on his foot. “Good that,” she said a little awkwardly.

Minho settled down onto the bed and Jeff, after a roll of his eyes and a muttered comment about dramatic shanks, went back to work stitching his arm up.

Before the silence could get awkward, Kramer took a breath. “Since his cognitive abilities appear to be intact, that does make the prognosis much better. We can start treatment immediately, focusing on mood adjustment.”

“English,” Minho said, still a growl.

“We’re going to put him on a sedative and a mood stabilizer,” the woman translated helpfully. “We’ll introduce the same stimuli--the same set of people--as before and monitor any and all changes to his reaction. We’ve got a few options for medication we can try, hopefully one of them will work.”

“And if they don’t?” Minho’s voice was still deadly.

Dietrich spoke up, stammering slightly but apparently determined not to be silenced. “That’s where I come in. I have every confidence we will be able to expand on my research and find a way to rebuild the damaged parts of Subj--of Newt’s brain,” he corrected hurriedly when both the Gladers and Brenda all glared at him. “We have all the Swipe data, which means we know what his brain looked like when it was healthy. That gives us a leg up.”

It all seemed so hopeful. But none of them had been six inches from Newt while he tried to strangle them.

~

_ Paradise, Day 12 _

_It hit him when he woke up that he’d been in paradise almost as long as he’d ever been in the Glade._

_He waited for the realization to mean something, but somehow it didn’t. On a calendar, the Glade looked so recent--less than two months ago. But it was a lifetime ago. Two, even._

_He rolled out of his hammock gracelessly and unhooked it from the trees. For all that paradise had come with shelters and even electricity, the Gladers had all by unspoken agreement decided to sleep in hammocks like they always did back home._

_Home._

_It wasn’t home without Newt._

_Thomas had just dropped off his hammock when he made up his mind. He grabbed Minho first and told him the plan._

_To his surprise, Minho didn’t protest. He almost looked relieved. Thomas supposed it had to be an adjustment being safe after so much running--or maybe he’d just forgotten for a moment that Newt was as important to Minho as he was to him._

_“We’ll do it one way or another,” Minho agreed, “but if we can get your WICKED girlfriend on board it’ll be easier.”_

_“She’s not--” Thomas began, and stopped. It wasn’t worth it. “We’ll ask.”_

~

Thomas hadn’t thought about how they were going to get close enough to give Newt the medication. He’d assumed it would be injected, but Kramer had vetoed that.

“Until we have a way to get more sterile needles,” the woman had said, “we’re reserving them for emergencies. Epinephrine, things of that nature. He’ll take his medication orally.”

Thomas looked through the one-way glass at the… creature that had once been his best friend. Newt had given up all pretense of being a normal human; he was crouched in that strangely animal stance again, fingers tracing meaningless patterns on the ground. His eyes were on his hands but Thomas had the sense that he was focused on _them_ , one-way glass or not.

“And exactly how are you planning to make him do that?” Minho asked. “You can’t even open the door without him attacking you.”

"The Swipe." Dietrich was the one to speak up this time, unusually for him. "We can make sure he takes the pills."

Thomas and Minho exchanged a glance. "That doesn't seem right," Thomas said. He remembered only too well the feeling of his body being hijacked.

Brenda cut in. "We're hoping he'll agree with you. Hopefully we'll only have to use the Swipe as a threat."

Minho frowned, but like Thomas he couldn't seem to think of an alternative. "Why don't you just dial down his anger if the Swipe is still intact?" he asked.

"Not possible," Kramer said. "The Swipe doesn't interfere with brain activity directly. Much too risky, and it would have compromised our data to change your brain readings. The Swipe hijacks your nervous system below the brain, not the brain itself."

Thomas tried to look like he understood, but he wasn't sure it worked. "So what exactly is he going to take?" he asked.

Kramer held up a little paper cup with a yellow pill inside. "Seroquel. It's a mood stabilizer and antipsychotic that also comes with a side effect of making people sleepy. It's perfect for a first try.”

Thomas nodded, looking at Minho who nodded as well. “Okay,” he said. “Okay, let’s do it.”

Brenda raised an eyebrow. “You,” she said, “are staying right here. He didn’t attack anyone else, so putting you in there is much too much of a risk. I’m going to deliver the medication and explain why it’s in his best interest to take it without a fight.”

Thomas grimaced but stepped back, nodding. He really didn’t want to risk a repeat of his last ‘visit’. “Okay,” he said.

Brenda took the paper cup from Kramer, set it on a tray with a plastic cup of water, and stepped into the second room. She knocked on the glass and Newt’s head shot up.

Thomas sucked in a breath neither of them could hear. Newt looked worse than he had the day before. His hands had already been bloody, but there were fresh scratches on his face and his lip was raw and bleeding.

“Who did that to him?” Minho hissed before Thomas could get the words out.

Kramer shifted uncomfortably. “He did,” she said. “Last night he started screaming and clawing at himself. We’re not sure if it was some kind of attack or he was just trying to get us to open the door.”

“Why didn’t you make him stop?” Thomas asked. “I mean if you can make him take his medicine…”

Kramer blushed. “Ah, well, the thing is… that’s mostly a bluff. The Flare interacts with the Swipe mechanism in unpredictable ways and it might not work anymore.”

Thomas’s head whipped around to look at Brenda, suddenly terrified for her.

Brenda, though, sounded calm and cool over the speakers on this side of the glass. “Let me explain what’s going to happen,” she said. “I’m going to open this door,” she tapped a small sliding door in the middle of the main door; Thomas realized suddenly that what he’d thought was a push bar on the far side of the door was a shelf for just this kind of delivery. “And then,” Brenda continued, “I’m going to slide this tray through. You’re going to take the pill in the paper cup with the water in the plastic one. Good that?”

Glader slang, Thomas noticed, sounded much more natural in her mouth than Kramer’s. But Newt didn’t seem impressed.

“Is that right?” he asked. “And exactly why would I do that?”

Thomas couldn’t see her expression, but he suspected Brenda was smirking. “I wasn’t asking,” she said. “One way or another, your hand is going to pick up this cup and tip this pill into your mouth, and your throat is going to swallow it. All you get to decide is whether you’re at the wheel when it happens.”

Thomas looked at Dietrich, whose hands were hovering nervously over a keyboard. He suspected that was what controlled the Swipe; but on the other side of the glass, Newt was making a face.

“One pill,” he said suspiciously. “The shuck do you think one pill will do?”

Brenda opened the door and slid the tray onto the shelf. “One pill, twice a day,” she corrected. “We think it’ll make you human again.”

Newt’s eyes narrowed but he reached slowly for the pill, apparently waiting for her to change her mind and take it back. He kept his movements like that, controlled and slow, as he tipped the pill into his mouth, followed it with a sip of water, and swallowed.

Brenda smiled tightly, pulled the tray back through the door, shut it, and left the room. She sagged against the sliding door as soon as it was closed. “Wow,” she muttered. “Glass or not, that was an adrenaline rush.”

Thomas found himself chewing his nails as he watched Newt. “What now?” he asked.

It was Kramer who answered. “Now, we wait.”


	3. They say it's getting better.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have finished writing this, so unless something catastrophic happens to AO3 or Google Docs I will post it Monday and Friday until it's complete. I've also added chapter titles, because I can. They're all song lyrics, again because I can.
> 
> Thanks to Kanky for looking over Minho's part of this. All remaining mistakes are mine.
> 
> Also, at this point every trigger that will be part of this fic is tagged. Please read the tags and make sure you're okay with everything there so you don't get an unpleasant surprise later.

“I feel so useless.”

Thomas pressed his hands together, resting his face against them as he looked at the girl in the bed. He didn’t really expect an answer, but he couldn’t help waiting for one before he went on.

“Kramer keeps adjusting his meds. Now he’s on three--the original, another antipsychotic, and a sleeping pill, because he wasn’t sleeping at all and it was just making him…” he couldn’t help the small half-amused half-resentful twist to his mouth. “Crankier,” he finished. “So three, and all of them on high doses. And it’s not working.”

He dragged his hands over his face. “Yesterday he refused to take them,” he said. “And they used the Swipe. It worked, so Kramer’s happy. But as soon as they weren’t looking he threw up, and they didn’t feel safe making him take another one because they didn’t know how much had already absorbed into his blood.”

He closed his eyes tightly. “It’s killing me to look at him,” he said. “He still hasn’t let anyone in to clean him up and they still haven’t managed to get him sedated long enough to get a shucking bed in there.” He pressed his hands to his face again, dragging in long breaths until he was steady. Finally he stood up and left.

~

_ Paradise, Day 2 _

_Where was the electricity coming from?_

_It was one thing in the Glade. In the Glade they knew nothing about who had put them there or why. Here, they knew some things. Enough to know that this place by rights should have been deserted. WICKED wouldn’t have sent them to a current or former settlement, not with the world in the state it was in. So where was the electricity coming from?_

_And could they use it to turn the Flat Trans back on?_

_The idea stuck. It wasn’t paradise without Newt._

~

His life had become a chain of updates. Kramer and Dietrich updated Brenda. Brenda updated him and Minho. He updated Teresa.

He was headed to give her another one of those updates when he stopped in the door. Frowned, counted. Counted again.

“Jeff,” he said, catching the attention of the Med-Jack. “Aren’t there supposed to be twelve beds in here?”

Jeff looked up at him. “Didn’t they tell you?”

“Tell me what?”

Jeff shook his head. “Go check on Newt,” he said.

Thomas stared. Stared longer. A sneaking suspicion formed in his gut, something terrifying because it was so, so hopeful. It would be good news, the best they’d had in a week and a half.

He forgot what he’d been going to tell Teresa. He turned and ran from the hospital, fled to the hollowed-out hill and opened the door as fast as his shaking fingers could punch in the code. He ran flat-out down the hallway to the door, went inside--and stopped dead.

“Oh my god,” he breathed, approaching the sliding door without taking any notice of the scientists who were as always observing. “You did it.”

Newt was clean. The dirt and blood crusted on his hands and face had been washed off. His scratches and cuts had been bandaged. He was wearing clean clothes that didn’t have a scratch on them. And best of all he was curled up asleep on what Thomas instantly recognized as one of the hospital beds.

He looked at Kramer, eyes wide. “You did it,” he said again.

Kramer cleared her throat, a faint pink tinge appearing in her cheeks at the awe in his voice. “Well,” she said. “It was suggested that if we want him to act like a rational human being, it might help if he looked like one.”

Thomas could feel a smile spreading over his face. “Did Brenda suggest that?” he asked. She was usually good at spinning what he and Minho wanted into something that was good for paradise’s resident WICKED scientists.

Kramer nodded stiffly. “She did,” she said. “She, ah, also provided a suggestion as to how we might manage it without bloodshed.” The pink tinge was a little brighter now.

Thomas frowned, suddenly suspicious. “How’s that?”

Kramer fidgeted with the keyboard in front of her, lining up the edge with the edge of the desk. “We, ah, well. I gave him a powerful sedative in place of one of his mood stabilizers. It looked similar but it knocked him out. I think he realized right before--but in any case it gave us time to clean him up and move the bed in here.”

He wasn’t sure how to feel about that. On the one hand, they’d drugged Newt. But on the other hand, his friend looked peaceful for once.

“We bolted down the bed,” Kramer added, “so he can’t use it to hurt himself or anyone else. That’s why we needed so much time, really. I, ah, also took the liberty of having a few spare sets of clothes sent in. As yet he’s not stable enough to be allowed out to shower regularly, but he can at least have clean clothes.”

Thomas let out a breath, resting his hands on the monitor-covered counter. “Thank you,” he said, addressing the woman but looking at Newt. “Really.”

Kramer smiled tightly.

“I gotta tell Minho,” Thomas said suddenly, standing up. “Unless you already did?”

The woman shook her head. “No, we didn’t tell anyone. Except the Med-Jacks and doctors when we had to get the bed, but obviously they had to know.”

Thomas nodded, although he barely heard. He was already headed out the door.

~

Minho, to Thomas's surprise, was easy to find. Since reaching paradise he'd thrown himself into work, helping set up gardens and a Blood House and adding to the few cabins that had been waiting for them. That had only increased after they got Newt back. Today, though, Thomas found him lying in his hammock with a bottle of Gally's newly made moonshine in his hand.

Thomas hesitated, but he hadn't come out here just to run because Minho was having a bad day. So he approached and put a hand on his shoulder.

Minho jerked, opening his eyes and swinging the bottle at Thomas's head before he realized who it was and stopped. He rubbed at his eyes tiredly. "What're you doing here?"

"What're you doing sleeping?" Thomas retorted. "Aren't you supposed to be at work?"

"Aren't  _you?"_ Minho shot back and sighed, throwing an arm over his eyes. "I'm taking a day off from yelling at stupid Munies who couldn't be Sloppers if they tried. What's your excuse?"

Thomas blinked. Truthfully, he'd yet to find a job in the place Minho had taken to calling "the Glade 2.0". He'd been so focused on Newt and Teresa that, well, they'd sort of become his job.

"I just came from visiting Newt," he said. "They cleaned him up and got him in new clothes. And a bed. He's sleeping right now."

"Great," Minho said without inflection. "How'd they get him to do that?"

Thomas blinked. He'd expected a more positive reaction. "They didn't, exactly," he admitted. "Kramer tricked him into taking a sedative and they did it while he was out."

"Great," Minho said again. There was inflection now, but it wasn't happy. If anything, he sounded angry. "So the only way we can get him to look like himself is to play shucking dress up with him."

Thomas blinked, startled. "At least he looks like himself," he said. "That's better than him being covered in blood and klunk."

"It's better for  _us,"_ Minho shot back, dropping his arm and glaring at Thomas. "Don't act like it's some revolutionary thing for  _him."_

 

This time Thomas physically took a step back. It took him a second to find his voice, but when he did it came out just as venomous as Minho's. "You know what, since when do you give up?" he spat. "Since when do you lie around like a shuck face while Newt's in a shucking cell?"

Minho surged to his feet, surprisingly steady for getting out of a hammock, and grabbed Thomas's collar. "Don't you shucking  _dare_ act like you're the only one who cares about him!" he yelled. "Don't you  _dare!"_ He dropped his voice to something lower but just as harsh. "I would die for him. And I  _have_ killed for him. And he  _has_ survived for me. So don't you dare."

He should let it go, he knew that. But now that he'd gotten a real reaction from him, Thomas found that he couldn't stop pushing. "Then where are you all the time? Huh? Why don't you visit?"

"Because that's not him!" Minho shook him. "Maybe you can go in there every day and try to find some sign that he's getting better but I've lost him too shucking many times and I can't do it over and over like that!"

Thomas opened his mouth to say something, found he had nothing to say, and closed it again. "I'm sorry," he muttered at last.

Minho shook his head, releasing Thomas and stepping back. "Don't apologize," he said. "You'll do it again. You've got tunnel vision." There was no reprimand in his voice, just resignation. Somehow that made Thomas feel worse. "I'm going back to work," Minho announced, dropping the bottle of moonshine back on his hammock. "You should find a job. Something to do besides hover over Teresa and Newt all day." He walked off without another word, leaving Thomas with a new idea buzzing in the back of his skull.

 


	4. It's your heart, it's alive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks as always to Annie and Wreck for keeping this story alive.
> 
> Please read all the tags; they contain all warnings for the fic as a whole. I would hate for someone to get an unpleasant surprise, or have to stop reading later.

Jeff started to move back from Teresa’s bed as soon as he saw Thomas, but for once Thomas shook his head. “I’m here to talk to you,” he said.

His heart was thrumming. He hadn’t even been this nervous when he’d asked about being a Runner. But then, he guessed, when he’s made that request he’d never stopped to really learn the stakes.

Jeff seemed surprised, but nodded. “Okay,” he said, beckoning Thomas to a corner. “What do you need?”

Thomas took a long breath. “I want to be a Med-Jack.”

Jeff blinked, frowned, looked hard at Thomas. “You’re kidding, right?”

He shook his head. “I’m serious. I want to be able to help Teresa and Newt like you do.”

The corner of Jeff’s mouth twitched, but he shook his head. “Look. Not for nothing, but Med-Jacks have to be patient. You? Are the least patient person I’ve ever seen besides maybe Minho.” Thomas started to interject, but Jeff wasn’t done. “And the truth is, we’re more like nurses here. Paradise came with a few doctors. Me and Clint and Marie--the Group B medic--we’re valuable because we know how to work without a fancy pharmacy, but they’ve got the training with the equipment we _do_ have. So it’d be a lot of work and a lot of fuss for not a lot of reward. Now I can appreciate work for work’s sake, but I’m not sure you can.”

Thomas bit his lip, looking over at Teresa. Jeff followed his gaze and sighed.

“There’s not a lot we can do for her, either,” he said. “Even if you were with us you wouldn’t be doing much.”

Thomas shook his head, looking at Jeff. “Minho and I were talking,” he said awkwardly. “I realized--I don’t have a job. I just have her, and Newt. And I don’t want anything else. I just want to help them.”

Jeff sighed. “You’re not gonna let this go, are you?”

“No,” he said honestly.

This time the Med-Jack actually smiled. “I’ll talk to Clint and the doctors, but no promises. You’d be better off helping Minho.”

“Minho has enough to worry about without adding me,” he said maybe too honestly. “And Newt and Teresa don’t have enough people worrying about them.”

Jeff shook his head, but that smile was still there. "Like I said, I'll talk to them. You better be sure about this, though. It's not a fun job."

Thomas nodded. He'd already made up his mind.

~

_ Paradise, Day 3 _

_“Absolutely not.”_

_Thomas opened his mouth to argue, but Brenda cut him off. “No, Thomas. No. This place took years to secure and set up and we are not risking it to save one control.”_

_“This isn’t ‘one control,’” Thomas said hotly. “This is Newt.”_

_Brenda shook her head. “We can’t risk it. If we open the Flat Trans again we risk being overrun by Cranks--”_

_“Then we shut it off!” Thomas said. “We shut it off and deal with the ones who come through! But we at least_ try _.”_

~

Newt looked a little worse for wear, but the clothes were still clean and there were only a few new scratches. Still a vast improvement over the past week.

"I want to talk to him," he announced.

Kramer and Dietrich exchanged a look. For once Kramer let her colleague speak. "I think that would be premature," he said. "We've kept his visitors strictly controlled--"

"I know that," he said. "It's why I haven't spoken to my best friend in a week. But he's made progress, hasn't he? He's not lashing out as much, I can see that." The first few days, Newt had thrown things and scratched himself and ripped his clothes even worse. There was none of that now.

Another look passed between the scientists. "Moderately," Kramer agreed hesitantly. "But I still don't think--"

"Consider it a Variable," Thomas snapped. "Whatever makes you feel better. One way or another, I'm going in."

Kramer sighed. Dietrich pressed his fingers to his temples and massaged them. Kramer eventually keyed in the code to open the sliding door, and Thomas stepped through.

They'd added a chair on this side since he'd last entered, so he sat down while he waited for Newt to stop pretending to be asleep. He knew the blond was pretending--no one could be that tense if they were actually deep asleep. When Newt didn't seem inclined to sit up, Thomas cleared his throat. "Hey."

Newt gave an audible sigh as he sat up and turned to face Thomas. "What?" he asked irritably.

Thomas ignored the venom. It was just the Flare, he reminded himself. "I wanted to talk. How are you feeling?"

Newt glared. "Like I've got ants running around under my skin making a right little colony."

"Is that why you scratch?" Thomas asked. He couldn't see the scientists, but he suspected they were listening intently. He doubted anyone had asked this before.

"Why are you here?" Newt asked instead of answering. "Are you expecting everything to be better? It's not, Tommy. It never will be. _I_ never will be."

"You are better," he said. "Last time I saw you..." He trailed off. "You look a lot better."

Newt shrugged, and it was one of those jerky playacting movements he'd been missing before. He sat back against the wall, one leg pulled up to his chest and the other dangling off the bed. "Look's a far cry from am, Tommy."

"Do you feel better?" Thomas asked.

Newt shrugged again. "Better's a far cry from good," he said.

"Well, you sound better." Thomas wasn't giving up on Newt, even if his friend was giving up on himself. Changing the subject, he said, "I told Jeff I want to be a Med-Jack."

Newt stared. Then he started to laugh. It wasn't a pleasant laugh. It was mocking and cruel and made the hair stand up on the back of Thomas's neck. "You?" he mocked when he calmed down. "Mr. 'too good for the Track-Hoes'? You want to do the most disgusting job short of being a Slopper?"

Thomas felt himself getting defensive. "Yeah. I want to help you and Teresa. What's so funny about that?"

Whatever it was, apparently the question was even funnier, because Newt was off and laughing again.

He gave up. For the moment, anyway. He got up and turned to leave. The door slid open before he even reached it; apparently Kramer had been waiting for this eventuality.

Newt’s voice stopped him. “You know they’ve got guards posted outside all night?” he asked, not trying to hide the bitterness in his voice. “Bloody nightmare. How do they expect me to put on clean bloody clothes if some stranger’s watching me?”

Thomas hesitated on the threshold, looking back at Newt. “Would you if they weren’t here?”

Newt gave another of those odd shrugs. “Well, you won’t know as long as they are, will you?”

Kramer would never go for it, Thomas thought.

But the guards themselves might.

~

Jeff wasn't in the hospital when Thomas went back the next day. Instead, a girl Thomas vaguely recognized form the Scorch, with cinnamon-colored skin and wild brownish-blondish hair tied back in a ponytail, was bent over Teresa, checking her blood pressure.

Thomas hesitated in the doorway. Jeff had given him the name of the Group B medic… “Marie?”

The girl turned, looking at Thomas with eyes such a light brown they looked almost yellow. “Yeah,” she said. Those odd eyes narrowed, then recognition hit. “You’re Thomas. Jeff told me you might be by.”

Thomas nodded, shifting on his feet a little nervously. She was the last obstacle between him and doing something meaningful. He was pretty sure he could convince Jeff and Clint to give him a chance, but Marie was an unknown quantity. “Yeah,” he said when he found his voice again. “I, uh. I visit her.”

“So I heard.” Marie rolled up the blood pressure cuff and tucked it into the kit she’d laid on the bed, studying him. “He also said you wanted to be a medic.”

Thomas nodded, shifting a little more.

Marie looked him over and gave him a curt nod. “All right, get over here.”

He obeyed, and she thrust a pair of cloth gloves and an orange plastic bag at him. “Put on and hold,” she ordered. Thomas fumbled to obey, and Marie turned back to the girl in the bed.

“Most of her scrapes and cuts have healed by now,” she said, “but a rock tore a chunk out of her shoulder and that still needs bandages. I’m gonna hand you the dirty ones, you put them in the bag and close it up tight. Then when I say, give me the gauze and the roll of bandages. Shiny?”

Thomas blinked, half at the rapid-fire orders and half at the unfamiliar slang. “Uh, yeah,” he said. “Shiny.”

Marie didn’t acknowledge his hesitation, just went to work peeling up the bandage. “Damn waste throwing out bandages,” she said, handing him the wad of cloth, “but it’s just not worth the risk of infection when they’ve gotten all bloodied up. We soak the gloves in bleach overnight if they don’t get too gross, and Little Miss WICKED No More assures us supplies will come, but the waste makes me uneasy. Here.”

She’d removed the gauze from Teresa’s shoulder, and Thomas made the mistake of looking at the wound. His gulp must have been audible, because Marie snorted. “It was worse before,” she said. “Got a nice look at her bones.”

Thomas swallowed again nervously but took the bloody gauze and tucked it in the bag.

“Close it up,” Marie ordered, peeling off her gloves. “And take those off--like this, see, so the gunk stays on the inside--put on new ones, and hand me gauze.”

Thomas obeyed, mimicking Marie’s way of getting gloves on and off. He couldn’t help feeling the first prick of disappointment. If something as simple as putting on gloves had a protocol, how much would he have to learn to make a real difference in Teresa and Newt’s lives?

He got the gauze out and handed it to her, watching as close as he could. She unwrapped the gauze smoothly and laid it over the part of Teresa’s shoulder that looked like raw hamburger. “Bandage,” she said curtly, holding out a hand. Thomas hurried to grab the roll and hand it to her.

“God, I’m gonna miss this stuff when we run out,” Marie said wistfully. “You don’t have to pin it or clip it, it sticks to itself. Of course, _if_ Little Miss is telling the truth, we won’t run out for a good long while, but I learned not to put all my eggs in one ‘if’ years ago.” She wrapped Teresa’s wound, stripped off her second pair of gloves, dropped them in another orange bag, and grinned wickedly at Thomas. “So, still want to be a medic?”

Thomas gulped, but looked at Teresa and nodded. “I want to,” he said. “I have to do something that means something or I’ll go insane, and nothing means more than this.”

Marie nodded, examining him with those unsettling eyes. Then she grinned. “Would you feel the same if I made you change her diaper?”

Thomas turned to her with eyes and mouth both wide. Marie cackled and slapped his shoulder. “Kidding! I’d never let a boy do it. Now shoo. I’ll tell Jeff you’ve got my vote. And take those bags to the Sloppers too. They’ll know which is trash and which is laundry.”

He nodded, relief filling him as he scooped up the bags and left.

~

As Newt had said, there were two guards in the room when Thomas slipped in just after sundown. There was a sleeping bag in one corner, but just one. They took shifts, Thomas figured; but at the moment they were both awake.

He didn’t know these two, but they were jumpy. The bigger one eyed him suspiciously. “Which one are you?”

Thomas hesitated only a moment. “Thomas. I, uh. Came to give you a night off.”

The smaller one, who was so young his chin was still covered in acne, snorted and shook his head. “No chance, stringbean. You’re the one who let him out before.”

“That was before,” he said defensively. “Anyway I’m not here to let him out.” He realized suddenly that it was true. He didn’t trust Newt that far, not yet. He plunged on. “I’m just here to spend the night with my friend. I’ll use the sleeping bag, I’ll stay on this side of the glass--” he conveniently left out which glass he was referring to “--and you can both go home and have a good night’s rest. When’s the last time you did?”

From the wistful look on Acne Boy’s face, Thomas guessed he’d found the right thing to say. The bigger guard ran a hand over his military-short hair and sighed.

“You muck this up and the Crank won’t get a chance to kill you,” he warned.

Thomas nodded, heart pounding. “Got it.”

And that was it. They left.

For the first time he could remember, Thomas was alone with Newt.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The writing of this story is finished, and the fic will be updated every Monday and Friday until completion. I have a sequel plotted if there is interest.


	5. I would have stayed up with you all night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A reminder as always: Please read the tags to be sure you can handle everything in this fic. I really don't want to give anyone a nasty surprise. If any of it triggers you but you want to read the rest anyway, tell me and I'll tell you which scenes to skip; or if you need to know how graphic a trigger gets, let me know and I'll tell you.

_Paradise, Day 27_

_ The room that housed the Flat Trans was occupied when they got there. _

_ “Brenda,” Thomas said, fumbling over the rest of the words. “I, uh…” _

_ “Slim it,” Brenda said, looking almost amused at her own use of Glader slang. _

_ Thomas deflated. “How did you know?” _

_ Brenda snorted. “Well, see, I asked myself ‘Why would Thomas back down?’” _

_ Thomas winced. He could see where this was going. _

_ “And I answered myself,” Brenda continued. “‘Thomas wouldn’t back down. Thomas would go behind my back and find out the code to open the Flat Trans again. Then he’d drag Minho through it and hang the consequences.’” She shook her head, folding her arms over her chest. “And that’s an unacceptable risk.” _

_ “Yeah?” Minho asked, looking between her, Jorge, and the two Munies. “You didn’t seem to bring enough to stop us.” _

_ Jorge laughed. Brenda shook her head again. _

_ “You misunderstand,” she said. “One way or another I know you and Thomas are going through. You can’t do it alone. There has to be someone who knows the real world, and there has to be someone on this end to turn the Flat Trans off if something goes wrong.” _

_ Thomas’s heart leapt. “You mean…” _

_ “Jorge and I are going with you,” Brenda said. “Luke and Karen here are former Crank Palace guards. They’ll make sure no one comes through who’s not with us.” _

~

Newt wasn’t pretending to sleep this time. He was sitting up on the bed, his legs pulled up like when Thomas had been here earlier that day. A thin smile spread over his face when he saw Thomas and the sleeping bag he’d dragged into the room. “I wasn’t sure you’d come.”

“You know me better than that,” Thomas said.

“True.” Newt laced his fingers together and stretched his arms over his head, giving a yawn that Thomas was sure was fake. “I knew you’d come,” he said, smirking, dropping his arms to dangle between his legs.

“You suggested it.” He couldn’t help the defensiveness in his tone.

“And you’re so suggestible, aren’t you, Tommy?” Newt swung his legs over the edge of the bed and stood. “Now turn around whilst I get changed.”

Thomas obeyed without even thinking about it. “Was that really why you asked me to come? So you could have some privacy?”

“That was one reason,” Newt admitted. Thomas could hear the sounds of zippers and rustling cloth, but resisted the urge to turn around. What would he even be expecting to see? More scratches and bandages? He could live without seeing that.

“What were the others?” Thomas asked.

“That,” Newt informed him, “would be telling. Just ask Minho--I never do anything for just one reason, and I rarely share what those reasons are. I’m decent.”

Thomas turned around. His eyes were wide, focused on Newt’s face to the point that he barely noticed he was wearing fresh clothes. He swallowed, hope suddenly billowing up and choking him. “You don’t?” he asked softly.

Newt raised an eyebrow, folding his clothes neatly. “I also don’t lie if I can get what I want by telling the truth,” he said evenly. Then he looked down at his hands, apparently realizing what Thomas had been looking at. Instantly his face turned impassive, all expression carefully wiped away. He finished what he was doing and sat back on the bed in his former position, but this time Thomas was watching. He was nearly positive that the artifice of the pose was itself the act.

“You’re getting better,” he breathed.

Newt’s eyes narrowed. “Better,” he said, parroting his words from earlier, “is a far cry from good.”

“But you’re getting there,” Thomas pressed. “Aren’t you?”

Newt sighed, pressing his hands to his eyes. “There are ants crawling under my skin,” he said flatly. “And a roaring in my ears and sometimes the edges of my vision go red and my heart starts pounding and I’m angry without even knowing why. And the thing is--the thing is I really _like_ those times because it’s easy. I don’t have to worry about being polite, being civilized, being _human_. All I have to do is claw and scream and throw things until the anger goes away.” He lowered his hands, meeting Thomas’s eyes. “I can hold a civil conversation, but if you opened that door right now I’d bash your head into the floor and I wouldn’t feel bad about it.”

Thomas swallowed. It wasn’t that he didn’t believe Newt, not really. But--”I have more faith in you than that,” he said. “You’re better. And you’ll keep getting better.”

Newt didn’t answer.

~

Thomas had ended up sleeping there, right across the glass from Newt. He had a crick in his neck when he woke; the floor wasn’t comfortable even through a sleeping bag. The Glade had at least had grass to cushion the ground instead of hard tile.

He’d gotten out just as Kramer and Dietrich arrived. He was pretty sure he’d hidden the sleeping bag well enough; he didn’t think they’d let him stay the night again if they knew about it. So far, though, he was safe.

At least, he thought he was until Minho cornered him barely three steps away from the hill that hid the labs.

Minho put his hands on his hips, looking Thomas over. “You look like klunk,” he informed him.

Thomas shrugged a little defensively. “Rough night.”

“Guess it would be, sleeping on the floor.”

Thomas jerked, and Minho smirked. “You’re kidding, right? I know where you sleep, shank. Figured there was only one other place you’d end up.” He paused, like he was weighing the pros and cons of the words. Finally he asked, “How’s he doing?”

Thomas considered his answer carefully. Minho had said he couldn’t lose Newt over and over, but he needed to understand that they weren’t losing him, not anymore. “Better,” he said at last. “A lot better.” He hesitated, then added, “He put on his own clothes this time. Clean ones. No prompting.”

The corner of Minho’s mouth twitched in a reluctant smile. “So that’s progress,” he said. He didn’t sound as disappointed as Thomas thought he meant to. “Least we’re not playing shucking dress-up with him anymore.” He looked around. “Listen. I’ve been talking with some of the others. This isn’t the Glade, we don’t have perfect weather year-round. Nights are already getting cooler.”

Thomas frowned. “Where are you going with this?”

Minho sighed and beckoned him to follow. Thomas fell into step beside him.

“Gally and his newly expanded crew have been working on getting more cabins set up,” he said. “We’re still limited to communal bathrooms, probably will be until after this winter. Communal kitchens too, we don’t have the wiring to get electricity in the cabins. But we’ve got places to stay, and we need more. I know you and Gally don’t get on, but--”

“I have a job,” Thomas broke in.

Minho shook his head. “Mooning over Teresa and Newt isn’t--”

“I’m going to be a Med-Jack.”

Minho stopped, turned to face him. He was smiling, the same mocking smile Newt had given the idea. “You,” he said. “A Med-Jack.”

“Yes.” Thomas planted his feet, hands curling into fists without him meaning to. “Jeff and Marie cleared it, and I’m sure Clint will. I want to do something that means something, and nothing means more to me than helping them.”

Minho looked at him, the smile fading. “You’re serious.”

Thomas nodded.

Minho shook his head. “You’re a crazy shank, but a job’s better than sitting on your butt another month.”

Thomas tried to change the subject. “Was there another reason you wanted to tell me about this? Or just trying to get me to work?”

“Actually, yeah.” Minho beckoned. “Gladers have a cabin to sleep in for now. We’ll have individual ones by the time the cold sets in, hopefully anyway.”

He led the way through the settlement, past Munies and Gladers. Thomas followed, his mind spinning. He’d had a seed of an idea the night before, and now that he was faced with this new information, it was turning into something real.

“I want to get Newt out of there,” he said. “Bring him to a real home.”

Minho snorted, shaking his head. “Shank, I know he put on his own clothes or whatever, but you know how far he is from ready for that?”

“Not right now,” Thomas said. “But he’s closer than you think. And if Gally’s building houses, couldn’t he make one that’s sort of--Newt-proof?”

Minho frowned, then shook his head. “No offense, shank, but I wouldn’t trust just you to keep Newt in line.”

“Then help me.” Thomas caught Minho’s arm and turned him to face him. “The two of us care more about Newt than anyone. No one else here is going to believe in him if we don’t and I _know_ he can get better.”

“And how do you propose we do that?” Minho asked. “Have Gally build a shucking cell for him?”

“I don’t know, maybe.”

Minho snorted. “How is that any better than where he is now?”

“Because we’d trust him.” The idea was forming into a plan now, and Thomas kept talking it out. “We wouldn’t lock him up unless he lashed out. We’d believe in him.”

Minho looked like he was considering it, then shook his head. “Tell you what. He keeps improving and we’ll see.”

Well, Thomas figured, it wasn’t a no.

~

They’d settled down to dinner in the cafeteria when Brenda found them.

“Hey,” she said, sliding her tray onto the table and sitting across from the pair. “Need to talk to you about Newt.”

Minho and Thomas exchanged a look. “What’d he do now?” Minho asked.

“Nothing,” she said, seeming surprised. “Well. He’s plateaued, according to Kramer. Dietrich wants to try something.”

Minho’s eyes narrowed. “What something?”

Brenda cleared her throat and folded her hands on the table. “Brain surgery. He wants to try to reconstruct part of Newt’s brain.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we are at the halfway point. At this point this fic is fully written. My priorities right now writing-wise are (in order) Don't (almost done), Built to Fall Apart (less than halfway done), and the sequel to this fic. If you like, you can skew those priorities back to the sequel by commenting.


	6. The darkness that you felt, I never meant for you to fix yourself.

Thomas’s ears were ringing. He couldn’t have heard right. “What?”

Minho was quicker on the draw. “How?”

Brenda explained. “It was his project back when WICKED still had a facility. The basics of it is, he uses Swipe data and 3D printing technology to recreate the damaged parts of the brain cell by cell in their healthy state. Then nanites are used to replace the damaged cells with the new ones and wire the healthy cells in.”

“That sounds…” Thomas tried to come up with something more positive than ‘like science fiction’, but he was drawing a blank. “Impossible,” he finished.

“Well, it’s not.” Brenda tapped her fingers on the table. “Actually, he managed one successful graft before WICKED was destroyed. Unfortunately we didn’t have enough time to judge the efficacy of the procedure, but he’s continued on animal subjects over the past month. And to be safe, he’s only going to be attempting to reconstruct one piece of Newt’s brain--the area responsible for impulse control. That area is almost totally dead at the moment, so if the worst happens there will be no real harm done.”

Thomas tried to hide the sudden surge of hope. Newt himself had admitted his impulse control was shucked, hadn’t he? If they could only fix one piece of his brain, that was the right one to fix.

Minho, however, wasn’t convinced. “How sure are you that this’ll work?”

Brenda tilted her head, considering. “I’m sure it won’t make things worse,” she said at last. “And I’m cautiously optimistic that it will work as planned.”

“So what are you waiting for?” Thomas asked quietly.

“Well,” Brenda said, “we decided Newt is still not capable of giving informed consent. And we decided that since you two have been the ones to take responsibility for him so far, and given your history, you qualify as his next of kin.”

Thomas blinked, processing that. “You’re waiting for our consent?” he asked.

“Since when does WICKED ask?” Minho said at the same time.

“WICKED is obsolete,” Brenda told Minho. “This is paradise, and we’re trying to be civilized.” Thomas figured that was an implicit ‘yes’ in answer to his question.

“Do it,” he said.

Minho shot him a glare. “Excuse me,” he said acidly. “I thought we were _both_ being asked for consent.”

Thomas glared right back. “Are you seriously saying you don’t want to give it?”

Brenda cut in. “I’ll tell you this much with absolute certainty. His chances at a full recovery are a lot better with the surgery than without.”

Minho glared between them, but finally sighed and nodded. “Do it.”

~

Once again, Thomas persuaded the guards to leave. Despite Brenda's confidence, despite the fact that her given consent, he was afraid that the next time he saw Newt he wouldn't recognize the person looking back at him.

This time, Newt stopped pretending to sleep and sat up as soon as Thomas came through the door. "I didn't think you'd come back," he said. This time Thomas thought the surprise sounded genuine.

“Well, I did.” Thomas sat down in the chair, sliding the sleeping bag out from its hiding place under it. “I wanted to talk to you before tomorrow.”

“You mean before they try to rebuild part of my frontal lobe?”

“They told you about it?”

Newt snorted. “Tommy, they got my consent _first_. Maybe it wasn’t sufficient, but it was necessary.” His voice turned bitter. “They didn’t tell me it wasn’t enough until they already had it. Nice to know I’m a child in this situation.”

“That’s not it,” Thomas said awkwardly, but he didn’t know what to say to reassure Newt. From Thomas’s foggy half-memories of the world beyond the Glade, the scientists and Brenda _were_ treating Newt like a child, or an invalid. Neither of those would be remotely comforting to him, so Thomas changed the subject. “I’m glad you said yes.”

Newt raised an eyebrow. “And why’s that?”

This at least was an easy question. “Because it means you want to get better.”

Newt snorted. “Maybe not as ‘better’ as all that,” he said. “I’m not asking to be the Newt who led you lot out of the Glade. I just don’t like this version of myself all that much either.”

Thomas smiled. “If it helps, we’re not his biggest fans either.”

This time Newt actually laughed. It was short, but at least it wasn’t the mocking laugh he’d given yesterday. “Yeah,” he said. “I didn’t think you would be.”

~

Morning found him still asleep when the scientists came in. Brenda opened the door and looked down at him, smiling wryly.

“How did I know?” she asked. She shook her head, not waiting for an answer. “You should go.” She looked up at Newt. “We’re going to have to sedate you.”

Newt nodded, not seeming surprised. Thomas climbed to his feet, rolled up the sleeping bag and shoved it under the chair again. He looked at Newt, massaging his neck. “You gonna be okay?”

Newt smiled thinly and made a shooing motion. “I’ll be fine. Get out of here.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Reminder that this story is fully written and will be updated Monday and Friday. Also reminder that I have a sequel in the works if there is interest.


	7. In the end, I'd do it all again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we are, the home stretch. Only three chapters left. Then I'll probably take a break to finish BTFA and Ribs before I sink my teeth into the sequel. (Yes, there's a sequel coming. I'm easily persuaded.)

“He’s in surgery.”

Minho didn’t look up from his breakfast, but Thomas thought he saw his shoulders tense. “That was fast,” he said, stabbing another bite of sausage.

Thomas sat down. He was too jittery to eat, so he hadn’t bothered getting food. “Brenda said we can’t watch.”

“Why would you want to?” Minho asked. “Nothing you can do anyway.” He took the bite of sausage, chewing stubbornly.

“Because--” Words failed him. He really couldn’t do anything. There was no point to being in there. “I don’t know.”

He looked at his hands, then back at Minho. “I’m going to go see Jeff. See if they can start teaching me. If--” He took a breath. “If this goes well we can take him home.”

Minho’s head jerked up. “Where’d the ‘we’ come from?” he asked. “I don’t remember saying I approved of the plan.”

“Minho, come on.” He was pleading but he didn’t care. This was _important_. “We’re his next of kin, remember? If we do this, it has to be together.”

Minho sighed and stabbed a bite of waffle with more force than strictly necessary. “Guess it does.”

~

Jeff looked up when Thomas entered the room. The look on his face told Thomas everything he needed to know. “You heard?”

Jeff nodded. “I think everyone in this place knows by now,” he said. “You here for a distraction?”

Thomas nodded.

The Med-Jack beckoned him over. “Marie said she had you assist with bandaging Teresa’s shoulder. She also said she gave you her stamp of approval, and assured me she doesn’t do that lightly. So we’re gonna start training you for real. Should keep your mind busy.”

Thomas nodded again, relieved, and focused on Jeff’s words.

“Mostly Med-Jacks don’t need to know the anatomy klunk that doctors do,” he said. “We’re just there for first aid, usually. But here’s how the place is set up.”

For two hours he went through the hospital, explaining every tool and trinket in the place, how it was used, how it should never be used, and quizzing Thomas on it all. When he was satisfied that Thomas could identify everything, he led him over to Teresa’s bed.

“I know you want to take care of her and Newt,” he said. “I can’t help as much with Newt--you’ll have to talk to Kramer and Dietrich about that--but I can tell you what Teresa needs every day.”

He put his hands on Teresa’s undamaged arm. “We’re worried about atrophy,” he said. “So for ten minutes a day you’re going to move each limb. Like this.” He bent her arm gently at the elbow, back and forth, lifted her arm and made small circles with it. After a few minutes and moving every joint in her arm, he stepped back and beckoned Thomas to try.

It was… tedious. Maybe Newt and Minho had had a point when they’d doubted Thomas had the patience for it. But the thought only made him determined to see this through. Teresa needed someone, and Newt needed someone, and no one cared about both of them more than Thomas did. So he kept at it, gently bending her arm back and forth, until Jeff had him move down to her leg and exercise that.

“Does this work?” he couldn’t help asking. “I mean, it’s not really her muscles doing it, so does this keep them from atrophying?”

Jeff shrugged. “It’s all we can do,” he said. Thomas took that to mean he didn’t know.

~

He spent the rest of the day in the hospital, and when he went to the labs in the hill, he found himself summarily pushed out by Brenda.

“He’s not done yet,” she said. “The nanites are finishing up their work and then he’ll be sedated a few more hours. You’ll be able to see him in the morning.”

Thomas’s mouth opened to object, but Brenda gave him a shove. “Go,” she ordered. “There’s nothing you can do here.”

He closed his mouth with a sigh and turned and slumped away. He felt useless again, utterly powerless to do anything but wait for news.

~

He found Minho helping Gally’s crew put away their tools for the night. No one wanted to leave anything out when the sky overhead was dark and threatening rain. Thomas supposed being kicked out of the labs meant he’d actually have to sleep in the cabin tonight.

Minho caught his eye and detached himself from Gally to come over. “Any news?”

Thomas shook his head. Looking at Minho and the way he slumped almost imperceptibly at the answer, it finally hit him how much this whole thing was hurting Minho. How had he been so close to him without ever noticing? Thomas wondered. When he was stressed, Thomas withdrew into himself. Minho threw himself into his work.

Tentatively, Thomas stepped forward and wrapped an arm around Minho’s waist. “He’s still in surgery,” he said. “He hasn’t died yet. It’s all going well so far.”

Minho shook his head, giving him a look; but he didn’t pull away from the touch. “You’ve got a shucking cheery way of giving good news, don’t you?” he asked with a touch of bitterness. Thomas didn’t take it personally; Minho had known Newt a lot longer than Thomas had. He had at least as much to lose.

Thomas made a snap decision. Hopefully it wouldn’t bite like the last one. “Gally!” he called. “You got another batch of moonshine ready yet?”

The big Builder scuffed a hand over his hair and nodded. “Just barely, but I do,” he said.

Thomas gave him a thumbs-up. “We’ll take two.” He looked at Minho. “You and I are gonna hole up in the Kitchens and get utterly smashed,” he informed him.

Minho laughed aloud. “Is that right?”

“Yes, it is,” he asserted. Gally beckoned them and Thomas tugged Minho along. The bigger boy didn’t resist, but his steps were slow. Minho, Thomas thought, had seen too many lost causes.

“Here you go,” Gally said, fishing two bottles of moonshine from the cabinet in the back of the Builders’ supply shed. He handed them to Thomas, who took them in one hand. “Get sleeping bags,” Gally advised. Thomas nodded; he’d already thought of that, but the reminder was a good one. The big boy hesitated, then added, “I hope he makes it.”

Minho muttered, “That makes three of us.”

~

Gally’s moonshine wasn’t working as intended. Minho, it turned out, was a mopey drunk. Or maybe he was just so stressed he managed to carry it through half a bottle of what was in fact _very_ strong alcohol.

Thomas sighed, lying beside Minho. They’d opened the sleeping bags up to make a mattress; it was warm in the Kitchens, so they didn’t see the point to having a blanket when they could have more protection for their backs. They didn’t see anything wrong with sleeping beside each other, either.

“I just--” Minho scrubbed at his eyes. “I’ve seen him lower than this,” he said. “I helped patch him up when he jumped--”

“What?” Thomas asked, startled.

Minho sighed and launched into the story. Thomas felt his stomach twist as he heard it.

“And when he got well enough to walk, and the Med-Jacks told him his leg would never be good enough to run again,” Minho’s voice cracked, “shuck, I thought he was going to try again. I think he would’ve, too, if he hadn’t promised me and Nick and Alby.”

“God,” Thomas muttered. “He told me he hurt it running from Grievers.”

Minho laughed. “Yeah, the party line was that he’d tried to climb up the walls to find a way out and slipped. The running from Grievers came when he was well enough to pretend his leg was the only thing he broke.”

Thomas let his head fall back against their makeshift mattress. A horrible thought had occurred to him. “Do you think he expected to die?” he asked. “When he gave his consent? Do you think he expected to die on the operating table?”

Minho considered it, but shook his head. “Nah. I’m not sure he’s himself enough to want to die anymore.”

Thomas snorted. “You’ve got a shuck cheery way of giving good news,” he said, parroting Minho’s words from earlier.

Minho snorted too, lying back beside him. The sleeping bags were narrow enough that their whole sides touched, and Thomas felt like there was an electric wire running through that side of him. He tilted his head, and Minho’s face was right there, and Minho was looking back at him.

He wasn’t sure who moved first. There was alcohol, it was late, and someone moved and someone met them halfway and their lips were suddenly pressed together. Minho tasted like sweat and moonshine and his lips were chapped and hot and Thomas hummed, turning onto his side so he could fit their lips together better. Minho turned too, lifting a hand to cup the back of Thomas’s head and licking across his lower lip. Thomas opened his mouth, and about at that point he realized what they were doing and he froze for a moment.

Minho pulled back, apparently thinking Thomas was having second thoughts. Thomas shook his head and tugged Minho back into another kiss. It was weird, he thought, but mostly it was weird that he’d never considered it before, when it turned out it felt really good to kiss Minho. When Teresa and Brenda had kissed him he’d been too confused and scared to pay attention, and he never would have pulled them into another kiss. They were a lot of things to him, each of them, but he didn’t love them like that. Minho… He’d never thought about it. But he did love Minho. He trusted him more than anyone but Newt.

That thought was what eventually made him break the kiss. It wasn’t home without Newt. This wasn’t real, wasn’t _right_ , without Newt.

He pressed their foreheads together, trying to figure out how to say what he was thinking. He didn’t know if Minho and Newt had ever had something, if they’d want something, if there’d be space for Thomas if they had.

Minho spoke first. “So I’ve been thinking,” he said.

“Yeah?” Thomas asked. His voice shook a little.

“Yeah,” Minho said, nodding shallowly. “If this works--if the surgery does what it’s supposed to--I think we could take him home. The two of us.”

Thomas met his eyes, his own wide and hopeful. “Yeah?”

Minho nodded again. “Yeah. If he wants to.”

If he wants us, Thomas imagined he meant.

 


	8. We were built to fall apart.

Frypan was, to say the least, unamused when he found them tangled in each other’s arms in his domain the next morning. He kicked them out unceremoniously, threatening dire consequences if they’d contaminated anything in his kitchen with their midnight activities. Thomas blushed, realizing what he thought had happened. Minho just gave him a salute and bundled up their sleeping bags. They left, walking so close together they bumped hips.

Brenda found them when they were putting away the sleeping bags. She looked exhausted, but she was smiling. “He made it,” she said. “We’re monitoring him, but we did an fMRI scan this morning and it looks like brain function in his frontal lobe is fully restored.”

Thomas’s jaw dropped and his eyes widened. “He’s better?” he asked, barely above a whisper.

“Too soon to tell,” Brenda said, scratching behind her ear a little awkwardly. “Everything we know so far is good news, but it’ll be a while before we can draw any conclusions. He’s asleep right now,” she added. “Sedation doesn’t make for good rest, and then we had to wake him up for about three hours of tests to do a preliminary check on his impulse control and cognitive functions.”

“Can we see him?” Minho asked. His hand found Thomas’s and squeezed it hard. Thomas squeezed back.

Brenda shrugged. “Long as you don’t wake him up, I don’t have a problem with it. But then, I’m so tired I’m about to fall over. Kramer and Dietrich have the day off, but there’ll be guards in there.”

Thomas nodded, wrapped his arm around Minho’s waist, and led the way to the labs. Brenda watched them go.

~

_ Paradise, Day 1 _

_“She’s alive?”_

_Thomas stared at Jeff, stunned beyond words. The Med-Jack shifted uncomfortably._

_“Yeah,” he said. “I wouldn’t say she was if she wasn’t. Gally got her out from the rubble and carried her through the Flat Trans. She’s here. She’s in a coma again, but she’s here.”_

_Thomas couldn’t breathe. “I thought I lost her,” he whispered through numb lips. “Can I see her?”_

_Jeff shrugged. “She’s not gonna say much, but yeah, sure.”_

~

“He looks so peaceful.” Minho’s words were barely above a breath, like he was afraid Newt would hear and wake up.

Thomas could only nod. Aside from a bandage around his head (apparently they’d only needed to make a small incision in his skull to let the nanites in, but it would still take time to heal), Newt looked better than he had since they’d gotten him back. Most of the bandages on his face and arms had been removed, revealing scabs and shiny pink skin. He was wearing fresh clothes again, and his skin and hair were free of dirt and oil.

“Still think we’re just playing dress-up?” Thomas asked softly.

Minho shook his head. “I already told you. I can’t--I can’t hope until we know.”

Thomas nodded, turning to wrap his arms more fully around Minho, resting his head on his shoulder so he could still watch Newt. “I know.” He paused and added, “I don’t blame you.”

Minho nodded, swallowing. Thomas had the feeling he’d needed to hear someone say that for a while. “You stay in here every night?” he asked.

“It’s only been two,” Thomas murmured. “But yeah.”

Another nod. “I think--maybe I’ll stay with you.”

Thomas looked up at him, surprised. Then he smiled. “I’d like that,” he said. “And I’m sure he would too.”

Minho nodded. He lifted one hand a little awkwardly and petted Thomas’s hair. “I--” he began, then stopped. Tried again. “If you wanted to blame last night on drink, I wouldn’t blame you.”

Thomas hesitated, putting his thoughts in order with a care he rarely took. “I know,” he said. “But I don’t. I just…” He had to stop and swallow so he could say it without his voice breaking. “Just the two of us together--I don’t know that it would work.”

“Not without him,” Minho agreed, giving a nod that Thomas felt more than saw. “I know. We’re both too hotheaded. We don’t think before we speak. Shuck, I think this is the most I’ve seen you think period.”

Thomas laughed, taking the jab for what it was. “But if this works…”

“If the surgery took,” Minho said slowly, “then we’d work. The three of us. I know we would.”

“If he wants to,” Thomas said.

Minho nodded. “If he wants to.”

The Crank in question stirred in the bed, and both boys fell silent, holding their breath waiting to see if he’d wake up. When he settled, Thomas turned to Minho.

“I know Kramer has the day off,” he said, “but we need to talk to her. About what he’ll need.”

Minho nodded. “You do that,” he said. “You’re the one training to be a Med-Jack. I’ll talk to Gally about a house with a safe room.”

Thomas smiled. “God, yes,” he whispered, kissing Minho’s cheek. They were finally doing it. They were going to take him home.

~

Kramer, as Thomas had suspected, wasn’t asleep. He’d noticed how often she had coffee in the lab and had guessed she would be the type to caffeinate instead of sleeping after a stressful all-nighter.

“Oh!” she said, looking up at him when he entered the tiny room that served as her and Dietrich’s office. “Good, you’re here. I was just making plans, and I’ve decided you and Minho should be the next variables.”

If he let her get started, she’d never stop. So he interrupted. “We want to take him home.”

Kramer’s mouth opened, closed, and opened again. “That would be premature,” she said.

“Not right now,” he hurried to add. “We know it’s too soon. But if the surgery took he’ll be fit to take out of the labs soon. Minho’s talking to Gally--”

Kramer interrupted this time. She pushed a hand through her hair, making a desperate attempt to tame the strands that had gotten loose from her customary bun at the same time she calmed herself to answer. “Soon is an overstatement,” she said. “We need at least a month more observation before we can recommend that, and that’s in the very best case scenario where the surgery was fully effective. I still haven’t had a chance to adjust his medications to compensate--”

Interrupting each other wasn’t an efficient way to carry on a conversation, but Thomas couldn’t listen to this, not when he and Minho were both doing everything they could to get ready. He grabbed Dietrich’s chair and sat down across the desk from her. “Skip over the observation,” he said. “Skip the medications. The plan was never to keep him in there forever, right?”

Kramer blinked, tired eyes looking large behind glasses she didn’t normally wear. “Right,” she admitted reluctantly.

“So the endgame is for him to get out. So,” Thomas leaned forward, propping his elbows on his knees, “tell me what I need to know when he does.”

Kramer blinked at him more, opening her mouth and then closing it.

“I’m training to be a Med-Jack,” Thomas said. “Or medic, or nurse, or whatever term works for you. I’ll take charge of him when he gets out and lives with us--me and Minho. Minho’s talking to Gally about building a house with a Newt-proof room in it, so he can’t attack anyone. Tell me what I need to do.”

Kramer pushed her glasses up her nose, fiddling with a pen. “Ah, well, the safe room is a good start,” she said. “You should talk to Crank Palace guards, make sure you can get him into that room without hurting him. They’ll know holds that will make him cooperative if he gets--obstinate.” She tapped the pen on the paper, eyes getting glassy. For all her reluctance and exhaustion, Thomas had the sense she was taking this seriously. Her professional pride wouldn’t let her reject this idea out of hand; it would be a coup for her to rehabilitate a Crank to the point that he could live outside a cell. And it was a puzzle. Between the two, she wouldn’t be able to say no.

“You’ll need to keep track of his medications,” she said. “Make sure he takes them exactly when he’s supposed to. You’ll need to learn from your Med-Jacks how to take care of the wounds he gives himself, because that may well last into his release.” Thomas smiled at the way she implicitly assumed Newt would eventually be released. “You’ll need to spend some time in the cell with him before he leaves,” she added. “We’ll need to work out coping skills for him, and you’ll need to practice them.”

Thomas nodded. He couldn’t help the buzz of excitement under his skin. They were going to do this. He could do everything she was talking about, and Gally could build a Newt-proof room in a new house, and they could finally take Newt _home_.

~

This time, when he went to the hospital, it was to see Teresa.

He moved her limbs as he spoke, exercising her how Jeff had taught him. It gave him something to do with his hands besides cling to her, and it gave him something to do while he went through the repetitive motions.

“Minho and I,” he said, and then found that he had to stop and try again. “We kissed. Last night. And sort of--fell asleep together. We didn’t _sleep_ together,” he added hastily--which, on reflection, was silly, because if things went how they hoped then they _would_ sleep together, along with Newt. The thought made his mouth go dry and he had to swallow a few times before he could say anything more. “And, um. This morning we decided we wanted to keep going, if we could have Newt in it too.”

He had to stop. He put her arm down and sat in the chair beside her. For the first time in the weeks since they’d rescued Newt, he put his head down and cried.

They were so close. So close. He hadn’t thought they’d even manage to make it this far. At this rate they could take Newt home by the time winter was through. But it was shucking terrifying being so close and not yet having Newt there.

~

This time when he went to the labs at sundown, Minho was there already, spreading two sleeping bags on the ground like a mattress. Newt was awake, sitting cross-legged on the bed with his back against the headboard. His eyes flicked to Thomas.

“So,” he said with a cheerfulness that sounded fake, “you two, huh?”

Thomas hesitated in the doorway, feeling oddly like he was intruding. “Sort of,” he said at last.

“Well, it’s not a match I would have pegged.” Newt’s smile looked awful, like it was painted on. “But good on you.”

Thomas frowned, looking at Minho. Minho shrugged.

“How’s your day gone?” he asked, trying to change the subject.

Newt shrugged, a jerky motion as horrible as the smile. “I slept,” he said like it was an answer, which Thomas didn’t think it was.

“What’s going on?” he asked bluntly. “Why are you all--stiff?”

Newt tilted his head, and it was like the past weeks had never happened, like he was still the Crank with the human mask they’d brought back. “I told you, Tommy,” he said. “I’m never going to get better.”

 


	9. How to save a life

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That stuff about suicide and eating disorders and that stuff in the tags? That's all in this chapter. Please make sure you're okay with that before moving on.

Things hadn’t gotten better.

Minho still spent the night with Thomas and Newt. But Newt had shut down. Far from improving, he seemed to have regressed. He was distant at best and cruel at worst. The self-harm had mostly stopped, but other than that he might have been the Crank they’d first rescued.

Finally, after two weeks of this, Minho stopped coming. Stopped seeking Thomas out, stopped touching him when he saw him. Thomas couldn’t blame him.

They’d been so close. So close to taking Newt home. And now it seemed that it was all for nothing.

He still went to Med-Jack training. He still worked with the old Crank Palace guards to learn the holds and bars that would let him subdue Newt if it came to that. But it was less because he still believed and more because, like Minho, he needed something to do to keep from totally breaking down.

Three weeks after his and Minho’s first night together, Thomas went into the observation room and realized something.

“You’re not changing anymore.”

Newt shrugged without sitting up, so that the only reason Thomas knew he’d moved was a slight jerk of his arms. “Don’t see the point,” he said.

Thomas shook his head. “Get dressed,” he said, folding his arms over his chest. “Get out of those clothes, wash up your face and arms at the sink, and put on fresh clothes.”

“Don’t have any,” Newt said. “They stopped giving them to me when I stopped putting them on.”

“I’ll get some,” Thomas said, turning to key in the code for the door. “Just get that shirt off and wash up.”

He grabbed a new set of clothes from the supply closet. When he came back, Newt had sat up against the headboard but hadn’t obeyed the directive.

He gave Thomas a mocking smile. “Right little Med-Jack you’re turning out to be,” he said. “Adorable, how you think you can do what the people with the Swipe control can’t.”

Thomas glared. “I’m not asking,” he said, opening the door and shoving the clothes through. “You’re going to wash up and put those on. I’ve been doing more than Med-Jack training--if you don’t cooperate I won’t need the Swipe, I’ll just hold you down and do it myself.”

Newt grinned, one of those horrible painted-on twists of his lips that were all he gave lately. “Love it when you talk dirty,” he said, almost a purr.

Thomas scowled and folded his arms over his chest. “I’m not joking.”

The smile vanished. “I’m not getting dressed with you watching,” Newt said.

Thomas pointedly turned around. “Wash up, too,” he ordered.

“Wash up, too,” Newt said in a high-pitched mocking singsong, but Thomas could hear the rustle of cloth and the creak of springs as he sat up.

He tracked the sound of Newt taking off the soiled shirt, and the sound of the water turning on. Then, taking a chance, he turned to look while Newt was facing away from him.

He couldn’t help a gasp.

Newt whirled, grabbing the shirt off the ground and holding it to his chest. “I bloody told you _not to look!_ ” he shouted. “Turn your shucking arse back around!”

Thomas was still staring at Newt’s torso, now safely hidden. Reluctantly, he forced himself to turn around and stare at the wall until Newt bitterly announced he was dressed.

Newt had obeyed his directions this time, and was dressed in clean clothes. His hands and face were clean as well, and when Thomas directed him to he shoved the dirty clothes through the door. Thomas took them and retreated to the outer room to dump them in the laundry. It was otherwise empty, and he wondered how he’d managed to miss Newt’s refusal to change for so long.

Then again, he wondered how the guards had failed to mention Newt’s refusal to eat for so long.

~

“Are you feeding him?”

Kramer looked up from her keyboard, frowning. “What?”

Thomas pointed through the one-way glass at Newt, who was sleeping at last. For once he hadn’t retreated from the labs once the sun came up and the scientists filed in. “Newt. Are you feeding him?”

“Of course we are,” Kramer said. “He’s given plenty of food three times a day, and he totally or nearly clears the plate every time. We’ve watched him.”

“Yeah, well then why can I count his ribs?”

Kramer blinked and frowned. “What?”

“I was there last night,” Thomas said. “I made him change and clean up and I looked. He’s still hurting himself, it’s just all on his torso under his shirt--and he’s not eating. I could count his ribs. His stomach is a hollow bowl. He’s starving.”

Kramer’s eyes took on a distant cast. “He is?” she said, her voice a thousand miles away. “That’s very interesting.”

Thomas opened his mouth to object to the term, but she wasn’t done. “Why don’t you bring Brenda and Minho up to speed? I’ll have him sedated for an exam. We should have answers tomorrow.”

“That’s not good enough!” Thomas yelled.

Kramer glowered at him. “Thomas,” she said sternly, “that’s the best that can be done.” Her expression softened. “It could be very good news,” she added.

Thomas doubted that, but he could see in her face that she wasn’t going to budge. He spun and left, slamming the door.

~

Thomas wormed his way into the labs while the doctors ran their tests, despite Kramer’s protests.

“I need to see him,” was all he said.

Newt had once more been forced to take a sedative. He’d been moved to the hospital, at Kramer’s insistence that she needed the equipment they had there.

The first step was to weigh him, which proved to be the trickiest; the scales weren’t made for people lying down, so Brenda ended up folding him into a half-sitting position on the base of the scale, leaning back against it.

“Dangerously underweight,” Kramer mused, writing something down on her clipboard.

Next they moved him to a bed and strapped him down. A doctor Thomas had never met hooked him up to an IV of anesthetic, and he and Kramer pulled out a contraption that looked nothing short of torturous.

Thomas glanced nervously at Jeff, who was there keeping track of Newt’s vitals in case something went wrong. “What are you doing?” he asked.

“There are a few possible reasons for what we’re seeing,” Kramer said, “vis a vis the drastic weight loss. We’re doing an endoscopy to narrow it down.”

Thomas had to look away when they slid the tube down Newt’s throat. Minho was there, suddenly--Thomas hadn’t even heard him come in, but the bigger boy wrapped his arms around him.

“It’s okay,” he whispered. “I think I know what happened.”

Thomas’s heart leapt. “You do?” he whispered back, wrapping his arms around Minho.

“I _might,_ ” Minho said. “But I think I’m right.”

They were silent, holding each other. It was the first time they’d touched in a week, and it melted something inside Thomas, some knot of tension he hadn’t realized he’d been carrying.

“What happened?” Thomas asked at last. He wasn’t sure if he meant between them or with Newt, but Minho didn’t answer in either case. He just shook his head and whispered, “Later. When we know.”

The procedure seemed to take ages, but Thomas suspected it was only about twenty minutes. Then Kramer was announcing they were finished, and even with his back to her Thomas could hear the smugness in her voice.

He turned around. “What’s going on?”

Kramer looked up at him, stripping off her gloves and dropping them in a bag Jeff held out. “He’s throwing up.”

Thomas blinked. “What?” Then his brain caught up with the words and he added, “When? Why? Why didn’t anyone see?”

“We don’t take our meals in the observation room,” Kramer said. “We deliver his, then retreat to our office. He must have figured that out somehow. He’s been eating and then throwing up everything he ate.”

“Why?” Thomas pressed.

Minho’s voice was distant and a little awed. “He’s trying to kill himself.”

~

Minho wouldn’t answer any more questions until they were back in the labs with Newt safely in the bed sleeping off the rest of the anesthetic. Then he leaned back against the wall, folding his arms over his chest, grinning. “Dumb shank,” he said, shaking his head. He reached out and grabbed Thomas, pulling him into a crushing hug, pressing their lips together firmly. “Don’t you get it?” he asked.

Thomas shook his head, then paused. “I get that he’s trying to kill himself,” he said. “I don’t get why you’re so happy about it.”

Brenda was the one to answer. She hadn’t been at the endoscopy, but had joined them later. She had the same worn but hopeful look as Minho. “Thomas,” she said, “Cranks commit homicide. Not suicide.”

Thomas’s mouth opened, then closed. He looked through the glass at Newt, eyes wide and suddenly dangerously hopeful. He swallowed. “You mean…” He couldn’t finish.

“I told you,” Minho said. “When you asked if he was trying to kill himself with the surgery, remember? I told you he wasn’t himself enough to want to die.”

This was twisted. It was wrong, horrifying, that they were looking at a suicide attempt as progress. But Thomas couldn’t help sagging against Minho. “He’s getting better,” he said through numb lips. He grinned. “He’s getting better.” He looked up at Minho, kissing him. “The whole relapse--it was an act. He’s getting _better_.”

Minho nodded and dragged him into another kiss.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One chapter left! How's everyone feeling?


	10. If this is the end, then what was the start?

Newt didn’t seem happy to see Minho there that night.

“You two make up, did you?” he asked bitterly.

Suddenly it clicked. “You didn’t,” Thomas breathed, stepping forward. “God, Newt, tell me you didn’t try to kill yourself because you were _jealous_.”

Newt’s eyes widened, then narrowed. “I shucking told you not to look,” he hissed. “Why couldn’t you just mind your own bloody business?”

Thomas shook his head, stepping forward. He pressed his hands to the door separating them. “Newt, that’s not--we just want you to get better.”

“Both of us,” Minho added, stepping up beside Thomas. “You can’t seriously think we were choosing each other over you.”

Newt folded his arms and didn’t answer.

“Gods,” Minho sighed, dragging his hands through his hair. “For someone so smart, you’re a shuck idiot sometimes.” He dropped his hands.

“I talked to Gally,” he said. “He said he should be able to get a house for the three of us set up sometime before winter.”

Newt’s eyes widened. His mouth opened, then closed. Thomas had never seen him so surprised.

“That’s a bad idea,” he warned.

“No, it’s not.” Thomas’s fingers curled around the door handle, but he didn’t open it. “Newt--Minho came for _you._ Not for me. We want to take you home. We want the three of us to make a home.”

Newt shook his head, folding his arms over his chest and pressing his lips together. At least, Thomas figured, he’d dropped the Crank act at last. This was unmistakably the Newt he’d known in the Glade.

“That’s a bad idea,” Newt said again.

“Why?” Thomas demanded.

“Because I didn’t go to all this trouble because I was jealous!” Newt yelled. “I did it so you two would have each other and not need me and be better shucking _off_ for it!”

Silence fell. Newt’s hands were clenched in fists. Minho had gone rigid beside Thomas.

“Open the door,” Minho said at last.

“I don’t--”

“Thomas, open the _shucking_ door right now.”

Thomas obeyed. Minho pushed past him into the room and scooped Newt into a crushing hug.

For all Newt’s acting, for all that he’d insisted to Thomas he’d gladly rip either of their throats out, he didn’t fight it, didn’t yell or scratch or bite. He just held very still, until Minho whispered something to him and Newt broke down.

Thomas had never seen Newt cry before. It wasn’t something he wanted to see again. He pushed the door all the way open so it would stay and went into the room, coming up behind Newt and wrapping his arms around both of them.

“I’m not better,” Newt mumbled over and over. “I’m not all better, I’m never going to be, just let me go, just let me die as myself.”

“Like klunk,” Minho murmured. He kissed Newt’s hair. “You _are_ yourself, shank, and you’re shucking gonna stay that way. We’ll make sure of it.”

Newt shook his head, but he didn’t seem to have an argument. He just cried, and Thomas and Minho held him.

~

Kramer was livid when she found them all sleeping tangled together.

“Unacceptable risk,” she ranted once Thomas and Minho were back in the main observation room and Newt in his cell. She paced back and forth, heels clacking louder than normal on the ground. “Reckless--you’re more suicidal than he is--”

“He’s _better_ ,” Thomas said. “He is. He didn’t attack either of us. He’s better. We want to take him home.”

~

Kramer’s rage aside, the plan was still on. If anything, Dietrich and Brenda (and Kramer too, when she calmed down) saw the trio’s night together as proof that Newt was well on the road to recovery.

Newt argued. He spent half of every night arguing. But half of every day was spent with Thomas in the cell with him, practicing ways of defusing the anger when it happened--because it still did. Not around Thomas and Minho anymore, but around the Munies the scientists sent in as other Variables. Now, Thomas was always there for those visits, holding Newt’s hands and kissing his forehead and slowly calming him down.

They were close. They were so close.

Some two months after that first night together, they woke up to snow on the ground and Gally pounding on the door.

“Thought you’d want to know,” the Builder said when they keyed in the code. “It’s done.”

~

“This is a bad idea,” Newt warned for the dozenth time that day.

“We know,” Minho said. “Now get up.”

Newt scowled at them from the bed. “I could kill you both in your sleep,” he said.

“But you won’t,” Thomas replied. “Now come on. We want to go home.”

When Newt still didn’t get up, Thomas opened the door fully and he and Minho went in. With a combination of coaxing and brute force, they got Newt off the bed and bundled into a coat. He was flushed by the end, and folded his arms over his chest rather than accepting either of their arms.

“Let’s just bloody go,” he mumbled.

So, Thomas on one side and Minho on the other and a grumbling Newt in the middle, the three of them went home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, that's it. Rehab is officially over. Good news: This is now part of a series (with the most tongue-in-cheek name I could come up with).
> 
> I've started writing the sequel but I'm probably going to take a couple weeks off this series to finish writing Ribs and Built to Fall Apart. In the meantime, feel free to nag me to write faster; prompt ficlets set during Rehab, i.e. 'deleted scenes'; or to ask questions about the fic that might be answered in the form of more fic.
> 
> See you in Halfway House!


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